Medford High students do Christmas community service

Friday

Jan 13, 2017 at 9:50 AMJan 13, 2017 at 9:50 AM

By Kayla Beardslee / For the Transcript

On Dec. 25, three MHS students (myself, Najma Jama, and Ben Candee) participated in Project Ezra at Malden High School. Project Ezra is a collaboration between local food pantry Bread of Life and local congregations Temple Tifereth Shalom and Agudas Achim-Ezreth Israel. These three organizations collaborate to prepare and serve Christmas meals to homeless, poor, and shut-in people in the area. This service has been a tradition for more than 30 years.

Project Ezra starts in the early morning on Christmas Day. Several hardy volunteers arrive at around 3 a.m. and begin preparing food for the meals — turkeys, carrots, potatoes, green beans, gravy and stuffing. More volunteers trickle in over the next few hours to help with food preparation. Around 6:30, another separate but equally important process starts: making the toiletry bags.

Often, the people being served by Project Ezra unfortunately don't have the access that they want to hygiene products. Project Ezra's organizer, Ed Weiner, works to change that. He travels frequently, as does his business team. Whenever they travel, they take the complimentary products offered by hotels and save them until Christmas. Then, on the day, a group of volunteers makes gift bags for the visitors containing those basic toiletries: soap, shampoo, lotion, and conditioner. The bags are small, but they can make a big difference.

This year, Weiner gathered even more toiletries than usual. A morning shock-jock in Iowa did a segment mocking Project Ezra (essentially, "this guy wanted to feed soap to homeless people!"). The segment itself was tasteless, but it ended up helping the project: many listeners looked up Project Ezra and decided to donate toiletries to Weiner.

Over the next few hours, food preparation continues. At this point, volunteers start to set out dozens of loaves of bread and hundreds of desserts, all donated. The tables are also decorated, in an attempt to bring festive spirit to the many people who need it. A few minutes before 11 a.m., the meal assembly line starts.

Project Ezra serves not just people who come to the high school but also people who need the meals and can’t come onsite. Assembly line volunteers put together meals for these shut-ins, made with food prepared by the early-morning workers. This year, there were between 700 and 800 shut-ins to prepare meals for and about two dozen people helping to assemble. The assembly process takes about an hour, though it can run longer depending on the year.

At noon, a sizable crowd has arrived in the school cafeteria, and the serving of food begins. This is where my, Najma’s, and Ben's shifts ended. In total, including the many shut-ins, almost 1,500 people were served by Project Ezra volunteers on Christmas Day.

It's a sobering number, but Project Ezra is a reminder that we all can – and should – give back to our community in ways that matter.